


I Like America & America Likes Me

by WhenIFindLoveAgain



Category: Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: Character Study, Concerts, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Drugs, F/F, Falling In Love, Friendship/Love, Hidden Talents, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Inspired by Music, Love, Music, Musical References, Musicians, Poetry, Poor Life Choices, Recreational Drug Use, Romance, Slam Poetry, Slice of Life, Writers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:40:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24553270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhenIFindLoveAgain/pseuds/WhenIFindLoveAgain
Summary: Soonyoung is a struggling writer living in New York City with her drug-using friend Seungwan when Seungwan launches her career but secretly reveals her girlfriend at a plant club whilst the world tells of how fake America is, and how fake life is
Relationships: Kim Yerim | Yeri/Park Sooyoung | Joy, Kim Yerim | Yeri/Son Seungwan | Wendy, Park Sooyoung | Joy/Son Seungwan | Wendy
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	I Like America & America Likes Me

**Author's Note:**

> I made another version of this, a (G) I-DLE version; check it out and tell me what you think :) Mwynhau cariads, and hit me up on instagram at @theartoftootimingyou

"You just sit there writing stories that don't get you famous." 

Sooyoung was initially stung by Seungwan's words, but, in all honesty, there was no bite to them. They were just softly spoken on a sunny Winter afternoon. Sooyoung was in the sitting room of her inner-city New York home in her arm-chair with her feet up on a ottoman while Seungwan sat cross-legged and hunch-shouldered on the Danish rug across the light grey carpet. Seungwan was in 90's style boot-leg jeans with a tight black turtleneck and diamond earrings, her hair scooped up into a long pony-tail on the top of her scalp. She was smoking slowly, and a horrible out-of-focus but distantly melodic tune by Tiger-Lily Hutchence played in the background from Seungwan's phone; it was a track, "I Know What You Mean" from the EP titled, "Tragic Tiger's Sad Meltdown". 

"I'm trying my best."

"And you do write good stuff. Good shit." Seungwan granted Sooyoung. Sooyoung felt hopeless compared to Seungwan, her dipped half-lid eyes covered in beautiful strokes of strangely translucent and illuminate black and purple and lavender eye-shadow. Sooyoung was in a grey jersey cardigan, a navy long-sleeved top, and very, very cheap bootleg jeans from KMART that were too long in the leg by about two inches and had gotten wet when she had crossed a wet footpath when shopping at the supermarket earlier that morning. Seungwan's jeans were about two-hundred-and-fifty dollars, whereas, Sooyoung's were ten dollars. "But something has to go different." Seungwan hummed. She shifted over on her knees to where Sooyoung was. "Are you okay? You look sad." Seungwan rested her head on the ottoman by Sooyoung's legs and enhaled smoke across it's upholstery fabric.

"Why is it some dickhead whose brain is fucked with marijuana, their face is fucked with piercings, and their body is fucked with infertility - why is it they get a go and get to make money and become everything, and I'm just...." Sooyoung groaned, tilting her head back, gazing up at the ceiling. 

"Is that designer? Is that on fire? Am I a liar? Fuck, I want to...see what I can do." Seungwan mumbled. Even though Seungwan was basically just mumbling and rambling along to herself, Sooyoung listened, Seungwan became a very raw person and a unconcious person when she smoked...which was all the time.

"What can you do?" Sooyoung asked her.

"Make a fucking problem for lots of other cunts..." Seungwan blinked slowly, raising the cigarette to her lips again.

Sooyoung giggled, covering her face with her hands. "You're so high on your drugs."

Seungwan hummed. "When I throw up, we can go out to the city. Let's go outside. To the city."

"Ok, you want some salt water?" Sooyoung asked. Once Seungwan smoked whatever it was precisely she smoked...it wasn't marijuana. It definitely wasn't marijuana. Sooyoung knew what marijuana smelt like, and Seungwan's cigarettes didn't even have a little bit of that in it. Seungwan said that the cigarettes came from Wales in the UK; they were made up of acorn and oak tree bark - the slim white translucently thin pieces beneath the rough skin - along with flower petals, bloom stems and about 10% of tar. Seungwan usually threw up after them, and, deep down inside Sooyoung, Sooyoung knew it was an absurd habit of Seungwan's. The cigarettes may have made her sick in the beginning, but they didn't now. When Seungwan had been half-drugged she had once murmured that "it gives me a flat stomach without the exercise". It made Sooyoung's skin shiver coldly and fearfully, but she never said anything. She constantly kept an eye on Seungwan, making sure she was ok. And, at the moment, Seungwan was.

Sooyoung slipped her headphones over her ears and played the 1975 as loud as she could without damaging her hearing so she could avoid hearing Seungwan choking and coughing and vomiting up the contents of her stomach - which was probably nothing more than tea and a piece of fruit - in the bathroom.

Ten minutes later, Seungwan came out into the sitting room. Sooyoung kept a spare toothbrush in her bathroom for Seungwan so she could do this. Seungwan slipped on her ankle boots with the cube-square heels and she grinned white teeth at Sooyoung, her dark red lipstick restored to perfection. "We're all scared of dying, it's fine..." Seungwan said, singing the last word - "fine" - ever so softly and for a few moments. Seungwan had came in that day wearing a world war two era flighter cap that had once been apart of a British RAF's pilots uniform; she put it back on her head and gathered up Sooyoung.

They went out to a British-style pub and stayed there for an hour. Seungwan mistook the door. The place she was looking for was at the end of the street...on the other side of the road. They got through a bottle of wine, and Sooyoung felt happy in Seungwan's company. "Thanks for not...getting that fringe." Seungwan told Sooyoung. "You look so nice without it. But, I guess I'd get used to you...with it, I guess, I don't know." They sat either side of a oak table in a dark-red leather upholstered booth; the leather was studded like a chesterfield sofa, and Sooyoung liked it.

"I thought I might grow it out down to my waist; another few inches." Sooyoung said. "What d'you think?"

Seungwan blinked at her hazily, but, then, a half-grin came across her pretty dark-red mouth. "Is that girl on fire?" She said, pointing a index finger at Sooyoung. Sooyoung made the mistake of looking around, and it made Seungwan laugh and clap. Sooyoung blinked when she realized Seungwan was talking about her. "You're skin is fire...so desired." Seungwan said, leaning back in her dark red leather booth seat, her eyes drooping close due to the intense gaze she focused on Sooyoung, gentling it. 

They went to the correct place Seungwan wanted down the street, Seungwan's elbow looped through Sooyoung's.

"When we get inside, you're going to write some of your best slam poetry, and then you're going to read it...or sing it out to everyone. How you do it, babe..." Seungwan mumbled on, barely coherent.

Sooyoung wrapped her left arm around Seungwan when they got a table inside the brand new club; the place was called "Earth", and, Sooyoung didn't know if she quite liked the people inside the place where fronds and ferns hung in hanging planters from the two storey ceiling-scape with was mottled with scars, paint marks, and broken up antique plaster cornices. A mess of 1930's stained glass lighting pieces and neo-modern Scandinavian metal cages of light hung from the ceiling and sat - dustily - on tables and even in odd places on the floor, stakced on small tables or books that people came and read and put back. They had a serving bar for alcohol, but Sooyoung wasn't sure about alcohol. For an hour, she wrote on and off while she talked to Seungwan and two bottles of wine came around that Sooyoung had no money to pay for, so, she hoped that Seungwan did.

When Sooyoung was done, not wanting to upset Seungwan in her current mood, she complied and told Seungwan that she had constructed a piece. But no way was Sooyoung singing it out or doing whatever Seungwan was deciding in her poor, drug-fucked brain.

"Oh, no way, you can't do this, sorry love, come on, let me, love." Seungwan said, grasping hold of Sooyoung's note-book after she had read it. Her upper lip was curled dismissevly, and there was something suddenly so toxic about her nature. Sooyoung wanted to hit her. "I know how to do this, you don't."

"You're a bitch, you know that, right?" Sooyoung growled a little bit. Seungwan left her side and went across the other side of waht could be described as the dining room - the place just seemed like to be one big restaurant dining space with this small stage tucked away in the corner of the room, surrounded by broken lamps with their stained broken glass and pot plants and cigarette ash. 

Seungwan got up onto the stage, one of her hands slid into the back pocket of her jeans, the other wrapped around the head of the microphone; she swayed to the side, and then to the other, before tilting her head to the side, observing everyone via half-closed lids. "I'm scared of dying, is that on fire?" She sang softly. "Am I liar? Ooo, I can't be quiet..."

Sooyoung's hands rose to her mouth, her being feeling stark and bare, something like a wetness filling up her being, a sadness, but, at the same time, it wasn't. Her eyes were locked on Seungwan. "I'm scared of dying; no gun required, ooo. My skin is fire, so desired..."

Sooyoung's eyes properly grew wet. She couldn't help herself. Everyone in the club was transfixed, direct on Seungwan. Seungwan hummed and vocalized lowly into the microphone, swaying her hips back the once, and moving the microphone on it's stand with her, dancing small and gracefully, every set of eyes following the lines of her body that looked utterly free and majestic. Seungwan's hands moved through her hair, her seven-decades old RAF hat falling to the ground and her hair been pulled from it's high-on pony-tail. "Is that designer? Is that on fire? Am I liar? Oh, will this help me lay down?" Seungwan suddenly sung in a human demand, her voice burred and lit on the edges and in the middle with paraell's still free, the naturalistic autotune but skill of her lungs and throat. Seungwan had a bit of a background in rapping, but all of that was no use here. This was something else. Seungwan's voice raised that little bit more. People in the street and through the walls next door could hear it, Sooyoung thought. "My skin is fire, it's so desired! No gun required! Oh, will this help me lay down? I'm scared of dying, it's fine..." Seungwan sung the last word, and people clapped, whooping and cheering, asking her to make sure she did "the whole thing". "What's a fiver -" Sooyoung bobbed down to the ground in a crouch. "Being young in the city? Believe and say something." Everyone went mental, with Seungwan's elbow and forearm draped so delicately over her knee and thigh and the microphone stand bent down to her level. "Would you please listen?" Seungwan stood up, and moved across the stage, the music taking control of her body. "Would you please listen? We can see it's missing; when you bleed say so we know. Being young in the city, believe, and say something." Seungwan grinned like a lion.

"Would you please listen?" Seungwan pointed down to Sooyoung from the stage. "Would you please listen? We can see it's missing, when you bleed say so. We know, council, being listed, man I kinda miss it - hey!"

People danced, their bodies and their arms swaying and their hair flying; people filmed. So, so many people filmed. Sooyoung was becoming lost in it all, this scene that was more Seungwan's than it was her's. 

"Babe, go!" Someone shouted. Sooyoung turned around and for a split second to see a very round-faced girl with a immaculate figure in a black t-shirt, corset worn on the outside, denim shorts, fish-net stockings to her knees, and high-heeled Doc Marten boots with a black lace headscarf worn around her head and knotted in a rope at the back of her scalp by her neck; a peel of orange-brown finge came out from the hem over her forehead. The girl was beautiful. 

"I'm a designer, unite pariahs, am I a liar? Oh, will this help me lay down?" Seungwan moved to the ground onto her knees with a sway, and Sooyoung nearly lost her head as Seungwan continued to make her cheap slam poetry her own. "Kids don't want rifles -" Seungwan mimicked a gun-shot with a free hand. "They want supreme -" Seungwan mimicked a crown worn on her head. "No gun required -" Seungwan wiggled a finger at the crowd. What the fuck is in her cigarettes? Sooyoung thought. "Oh, will this help me lay down? We're scared of dying -" Seungwan pressed her hand over her heart, looking at Sooyoung. "It's fine!" Seungwan sang out powerfully and burred, before adding a growled "ooo, ooo!" on the end. She jumped on the stage and ran over to their table...before climbing over the top of Sooyoung, straddling her, and singing - or, rather, shouting song - down at her, their faces barely apart at all. The microphone, now free of its stand, was shoved between Seungwan and Sooyoung's's mouths and noses. Seungwan's breath smelt like vomit and wine and toothpaste. It was disgusting. "What's a fiver been young in the city?" Seungwan ground down onto Sooyoung, once, twice, thrice times, waving an arm over their heads like a uniformed rapper. "Believe, and say something." Seungwan pressed a hard and momentary kiss to Sooyoung's cheek, before jumping off of her and rushing off, clambering back up onto the stage. The crowd knew the lyrics by now, and was singing along. 

"Would you please listen! Would you please listen!" Seungwan jutted her finger out to everyone, everyone under a spell, her spell, under her control. "We can see it's missing. When you bleed say so we know. Being young in the city; believe, and say something."

Seungwan signaled for quiet, raising a flat hand, then bring down towards the ground. "Don't have to say that, it's on fire. And where am I? So let, let me lie down." Seungwan sung softer, back down now by herself, but the crowd steadily joined back in. "My skin is fire, it's so desired. No gun required, oh, will it help me lay down?"

The girl with the round face edged her way through the crowd, and took a seat at Sooyoung and Seungwan's table. The girl tapped Sooyoung on the shoulder, and when Sooyoung looked around, the girl winked and smiled. "I'm scared of dying, it's fine!" Seungwan tore her hands viciously through her hair. "Oh, what's a fiver, being young in the city? Believe, and say something. And say something. And say something."

Seungwan gave one final whoop, and, it took a few moments for everyone to realize that it was all over. When they did, everyone applauded, and Sooyoung reflected at the enormity of just what Seungwan had just done. Roughly fifty people had filmed that, and would put that on social media, to be shared all around. Oh, God...Sooyoung could barely breathe as Seungwan made her way back to the table. But, then, in that, there was something else to tackle and get through now. 

The round-faced girl.

"Sooyoung, love, this is Yerim." Seungwan introduced the two of them. /// Sooyoung swore she could visibly see the undulation of Seungwan's heartbeat at her throat. She was now sitting in the passenger seat of Yerim's nicknamed "eurofag mini" - a 2014 model Mini Cooper now owned and made by BMW - in her jeans, boots, her black lace bra, and a necklace that Yerim had put around her neck. Melanie Martinez played from a CD in Yerim's CD player - Sooyoung didn't even know that people listened to CD's anymore, wasn't everything that Swedish Spotify? - and Seungwan sung along softly to "Highschool Sweethearts" as Yerim drove along. Yerim took Seungwan back to her apartment on the fourth floor of a Edwardian era block when the entire Asian Continent economy had been on fire via French, Spanish, German and Italian invasions, and British, Russian and Danish merchants. Sooyoung was in awe of the beautiful old property, but, Yerim didn't seem dispositioned to the thought that Sooyoung might want to be at her own home, not here. Sooyoung forced her eyes between her phone and the television in Yerim's high-ceilinged sitting room as Seungwan lay on a light, light green and gold embroidered upholsted chaise lounge with her head in Yerim's lap. She had no idea. She had no idea this friend even existed. Sooyoung felt sick inside. The fact that she wasn't in her own home either worsened the feeling. Sooyoung would readily admit that, yes, she didn't get out of the house much, she didn't have any friends, she hadn't dated anyone for ages, her sex life was as empty as a eunich's underpants, and....yes, she was lonely. But, there was something else so absurd. She could be surrounded by people and she, sitting on her throne, would want nothing more than to be alone. What did they call that? "Self-sabotage" wasn't it? Seungwan sung softly under her breath, cuddled up with Yerim. "You must promise to love me..." Sooyoung's eyes burned horrifically, and her phone dropped and clattered numbly to the ground as she burst into sudden and helpless tears, covering her face with her hands. Yerim drove her home, and Sooyoung was irritated by a section of her hair which felt so horrible, falling over her face. She kept tucking it back, and felt like she had been stabbed inside when a thought occured to her that Yerim might think that there was something wrong with her mental health...the constant brushing gesture - Sooyoung didn't want to look back, but, for decencies sake, like her Father taught her, she looked back and waved at Yerim, who smiled sadly and waved back too, before blowing her a kiss. Sooyoung barely got herself inside before she threw up everywhere in her floorboarded hallway. "You must promise to love me And damn it if you fuck me over I will rip you're fucking face apart..." Seungwan's gentle singing echoed about in Sooyoung's scalp as she got down to the revolting job of having to clean up ehr own bodily secretions with a piece of paper towel, and having to breathe in her wretched bloody breath. /// A week went by. For five of those days, Sooyoung didn't see or hear from Seungwan. On the remaining two, anger and frustration and utter contempt swirled inside of her. Nothing had changed, nothing had happened. No one new had followed her social media, liked her work, commented on it, reviewed it, no emails from publishing groups, no recognition, absolutely nothing - "YOU FUCKING VERMIN!" Sooyoung howled, nearly going to tears again as she read her social media and saw a post on Instagram, a Englishman, who had written a piece of slam poetry in the same manner as she would. It had 30,700 likes and 800 reviews and he was published in 88 countries. "YOU FILTHY, FILTHY, SYPHILITIC, FUCKING VERMIN! ME! WHAT ABOUT FUCKING ME! YOU DISGUSTING, FUCKING VERMIN! ARGH!" /// Five months went by. Sooyoung felt nothing out of the ordinairy; nothing really out of the ordinairy happened. Except, for just one day. Her name was Jaehyun, and Sooyoung talked to her at a library for nearly three hours, and went out for a coffee with her. Sooyoung didn't see Jaehyun after that, and it was like that for months. Sooyoung didn't know what was of the future to come. She walked down a very wet winter street in the city, and sometimes she looked up to the dark, dark grey sky. There was this song playing in the cafe that day. "You get ready you get all dressed up to go nowhere in particular Does it matter if I'm not enough? For in the future there are things to come Because I'm young and in love I'm young And in love Oh-ooo-oh..." Sooyoung listened to the song through her ear-buds as she typed a new story. She hoped it could propel her, make her. She needed this. She utterly needed this. And why should she be considered by God and the Earth undeserving of this sucess? How hard could it be to do so well when she did so well? "Don't worry baby..."


End file.
